WASHINGTON — Sen. Marco Rubio said yesterday that he is ready to be president, becoming the second potential Republican candidate to drop big hints about 2016 recently as he vies for early attention in a crowded field.

Rubio, of Florida,,said on ABC’s This Week that while he will wait until the end of the year to consider the decision, he thinks he has a vision for the nation’s future and a strategy for achieving it.

Rubio’s assertion came a week after Gov. Rick Perry of Texas offered perhaps his clearest indication yet that he is considering another run, talking about his “botched” 2012 campaign on NBC’s Meet the Press and emphasizing that Americans believe in “second chances.”

With Rubio and Perry trailing other potential candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in recent polls, their remarks could be interpreted as attempts to stand out in a field with no front-runner.

A tea party darling who drew fire for working with Democrats on immigration reform, Rubio appeared intent on shoring up support among conservative voters. As House Republicans assemble a panel to further investigate the 2012 attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, he took a shot at another potential 2016 candidate: Hillary Clinton.

“If she is going to run on her record as secretary of state, she’s also going to have to answer for its massive failures,” he said.

After the Obama administration’s release of a recent study saying that the effects of climate change were already being felt, Rubio said he disagreed with scientists that humans were having an effect on the “always-evolving” climate.

“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it,” he said. “And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy.”